DE LOS CINISMOS :: Christa Zaat

Christa Zaat



Alfred James Munnings (British painter) 1878 - 1959
Kempton Park Stables, s.d.
oil on panel
14 x 28 in. (35.6 x 71.2 cm.)
signed A.J. Munnings (lower left)
private collection

Catalogue Note
Kempton Park Stables is a lyrical and modern composition with strong horizontal elements and comparable in its subject to works such as Horse Gossip at the Windsor Races (National Museum of Racing, Saratoga Springs) or The French Noseband, Racing Stables at Windsor (National Museum of Racing, Saratoga Springs).

While it has been speculated that the seated figure is Lady Munnings herself, two figures in the present work can be identified with some certainty. The standing man in a brown derby hat is Isaac Bell, a master of hounds and friend to Munnings. He painted his portrait and remarked in The Second Burst: “The painting of Ikey Bell’s portrait at his house in Kilkenny would fill pages were I to tell of all that happened and the people I met there.” (Sir Alfred Munnings, The Second Burst, London, 1951, p. 139). Bell would give Munnings a favorite grey, Isaac, as partial payment for the portrait and who would appear in many later paintings. There is an oil study of Isaac Bell, done for the present work, in the collection of the Munnings Museum at Castle House, Dedham.

The second known figure is Munnings’ horse, Anarchist. In The Finish, Munnings describes the experience of painting Anarchist in vivid detail: “Then Anarchist, one of the last remaining horses, a big, fine old 16.2 – such a sort, beautifully fit and clipped and all, mane water-brushed... and I start. It is as difficult to place a horse on his feet as ever… I carry on, and on, and on… The big lines… I go for the attitude… I paint him looking at me, a three-quarter side view, almost side, seeing into his chest. The road and hills being behind me, a road always used by hounds passing, he continually turns his head, all alert and listening, towards where I stand. He is on higher ground than I am; a good view of a horse… and that fine, alert expression, the bright healthy eye. That clipped out colour. What modeling!” (Munnings, pp. 71-2).